not helping

I can't even remember much of the first show last night. I remember doing one new joke and it working alright, which is why I did it during the second show. But that's about all I remember about the first show. The second show was (for me) was tough. The crowd just stared at me during 80% of my set. During the intro to my drinking chuck, I asked if people ever blacked out while drinking: "You guys ever black out when you drink?" Nothing, "You guys ever drink?" Still nada, "You guys ever speak?" (I could hear Claude and John laughing in the back, which made me smile). Afterwards we went to "The Bar" and I got really dizzy and thought I was going to throw up, thankfully I contained myself and when we got back home I passed out quickly and quietly. I don't know what came over me, but it kinda sucked.

Three days in Tulsa

I've been in Tulsa since Tuesday; and it's been a weird week. I forgot to call the club last week and tell them I'd need a key to the condo, so no one was there when I stopped by Tuesday afternoon. That's totally my fault. To kill time (in hopes that someone would come by) I went to the movie theater that is in the same strip mall as the club. There, I spent fifty cents to watch Wanted with Angelina Jolie and then another fifty cents to watch Hancock with Will Smith. Between movies, I checked the club, and noone was there. Eventually Claude called and told me he and John were at the Condo. Problem solved.
Wednesday night we were supposed to have the open mic (followed by myself, John and Claude) but we didn't have enough customers so the show was canceled. Instead, John, Claude and did a little writing back at the condo.
Tonight's show was awesome! It was a great way to kick off the week. Before the show even started, some bachelorette asked to kiss me on the forehead as some sort of party checklist. She didn't know I was one of the comics, and her party got a kick out of that when I was on stage. My set went well tonight, I really felt I warmed up the crowd, however I felt like I commented a little too much on certain current events that had little to nothing to do with my set. Aside from that distraction, I'm very pleased with my time. I did have to change some jokes since my set was cut short since we had a guest set. The guy (a local from Tulsa) Aaron Michael King, did well and ended up closing the show after Claude with announcements and such, which was awesome since I'm doing Claude's music cue's this week.
I'm really looking forward to the shows tomorrow night and Saturday. We found out tonight that we won't have a Sunday show, which sucks because I'm a sucker for stage time and I really want to use my time for more than myspacing and watching TV.
I think the most significant learning experience came Tuesday when I was just killing time and trying to spend as little money as possible while waiting around. Obviously the life of a comic isn't all shows and parties afterward; but it was really boring and kind of depressing not having anything to do or anyone to talk to.
But that's why I have black jack on my iPhone!

Saturday and Sunday shows

Both of the shows Saturday were great. Some of the staff said that the second show crowd would probably be troublesome, but they were great. The only snag I hit was during the announcements between John and Claude. I stumbled through the gift cards one and blanked on one of Claude's three TV credits. Rookie mistakes. No one mentioned it, but that doesn't make it better.
Tonight's show was really good all around. I opened with my black name joke and it went over really well, I also played with my Adult Video store joke and it got a decent response. The week went by really quickly; I'm assuming that as my "tour" goes on I'll start to miss home (read: my girlfriend).

Good Intentions

Last night after the first show, Claude tried to sell his DVD after the show. One guy asked if he could get a DVD of tonight's show, which is when I jumped in and said we could do that since Mark Payne recorded the whole show. That seemed really weird, that we happened to be taping and someone wanted it and asked for it specifically.
As for the actual shows; the first one was WAY better than the second. I hate it when people are "racist" towards Second Show Friday. They always act like S.S.F. is a nightmare to deal with. So when they have a S.S.F., they don't respect it or give their all, and so the show sucks. And it just perpetuates the stereotype... It's not fair, and I hate it.
Anyway, the second show is like the Second Show Fridayarchetype. Plato would say it was the show from which the stereotype was born. In short, it sucked. Weird talky people throughout the entire show, one girl fell asleep during the show, oh! and a bachelorette party. My set wasn't too bad, I didn't get big laughs, but I got just enough to know people were paying attention and weren't completely considering lynching me.

premeditated destruction

I performed at the Loony Bin in Wichita tonight and had a pretty good time. I didn't record my set because my camera was near the end of the tap, and I didn't have a spare in my bag (which means I don't have a spare on this trip). My set went well (I can say that since there is no physical proof) my Shoes joke is getting better responses, I think the way I hesitate to think how to describe my frustration in describing the woman's attractiveness when compared to the shoes is working. I did the "normal" announcements since no one at the club told me what announcements to do. Last night they only specified mentioning that Tim Wilson is coming for a special engagement next week. After the show I handed out more cards (and when I got home someone had already friended me on myspace from tonight's show!) and headed home.

I smoked three cigarettes tonight. I have a headache from that and even though there are two shows tomorrow I'm hoping not to smoke tomorrow (or at least not that much).

The road to Wichita

6:20 PM
The drive to Wichita was a pretty easy one; I stopped in Columbia to grab a quick lunch with Leroy, but his regional manager kept him looking for some holy grail of shipping records; so that took a while. Nothing real eventful happened on the ride up, I listened to old episodes of The Bill and Dan Show. I also thought about how the next two weeks are going to go. I'm not worried about my sets, I've done these rooms before; I'm going to be working with the same feature and same headliner for the next two weeks. The week could go badly if I don't get along with the guys or if they get along way too well and I end up being the third-wheel. I did meet John Burton (the feature act) and he seemed cool. I'll type more after the show.
12:52 AM
The Loony Bins do open mic on Wednesday; but their open mic show is followed by the regular show. Before the show, I was talking to the manager and he told me how they quadruple-booked the emcee spot for this week. Luckily the other three either couldn't make it. I've heard of double-bookings; but wow...
Tonight, I brought up four open micers (who were allotted 10 minutes each!). I didn't do any material before them, I just explained the open mic "rules". I did my set the open mic guys (and gal) and did well. The crowd was a little weird, but I think I got some good laughs. After the show, Claude (the headliner) and I talked about how all three of us didn't think they'd get the clever stuff. But they got my shampoo-dog joke, which is really just a joke for other comics. However, they didn't like my Abraham Lincoln reference so I was forced to do my Lincoln impression.
After the show I gave away my new marketing cards, I'm hoping people will want to be friends on Myspace or join my new email-list.

One for the road

Last night we recycled last week's list for open mic. A bunch of people didn't show, so Jeff threw up a bunch of people who weren't on the list. The crowd was weird, a kind of talky that goes beyond annoying but doesn't quite reach heckling and therefore require removal. Paul Harris did get "kicked" in the stomach though, apparently because he claimed a woman's pants were pink, she claimed they were red. Fair enough, I've seen people killed over that same issue. In the streets.
My set was fine, I'm still tinkering with the ending to that smoking joke (tinkering means I am trying the same line over and over again and hoping it will work better this time) and my Shoes joke. Gabe Kea said he liked my energy level; he said that I started out kind of low, but brought it up to the right balance of excited and relaxed by the middle of my set. After the show, Gabe and I picked up Sarah and we saw Tropic Thunder, it was pretty decent; very over the top. I kind of liked it, but probably not enough to warrant buying it.

If I were famous, people would read this...

Last night was my 29th birthday; because of that and because I am leaving town for a four weeks, I decided to invite a bunch of my co-workers from the Boathouse to see the show at the Comedy Forum. To my utter amazement, a huge group came out for the show. The show was more of a showcase than it was an open mic, which was really cool because my friends got to see the best and brightest (and hopefully they'll be more willing to come to another show). I went on stage last, and Al Canal even brought me up (after making the crowd sing happy birthday to me. My set went well, I got it on tape (Even Al's intro) and afterward Sarah threw an after party at her place. Tomorrow I head out of town, and it's really exciting, though already I can feel the pressure of not having a ton of money to spend on this trip and I'm already a little anxious about paying my bills when I get home, but I suppose that's just one of the "fun" parts about stand up comedy. It's like being nervous on a roller coaster, only instead of fearing a possibly-lethal ride malfunction, I fear not making a payment to my condo association.

Cool as Ice

Last night's show at the Comedy Forum was not your typical open mic. For starters, we had WAY less comics show up than normal, and on top of that, we literally doubled our audience size twice throughout the course of the show. We started with around 7 or 8 people, and ended up with more than 30. I remember looking up and one point and just being flabbergasted at the number of people.
I'm happy with my set last night, I am still working on the same two bits, but I also did my old Walmart jokes, which were kind of rusty. I started off my set with my black-name joke (even thought 6 of the 12 (or so) people in the audience were black). It got a decent reaction, but I even said that I was starting off trying to upset the audience so that I could win them back (thus seeming more triumphant). Anyway, the show ended around 9:15, which is almost a record as far as I'm concerned and I went to pick up Sarah and see Pineapple Express (it was alright, but not as great as I expected).
Next Monday is my birthday and the Forum is doing a showcase of some of their favorite comics, hopefully I can get some of my co-workers to come to the show.